Friday, November 21st, 2008
I grew up in the later years of local children's programming. (Picture the world of the show "Life on Mars.") Two shows that I remember watching in the Los Angeles area were Sheriff John and Hobo Kelly. Sheriff John would sing the song, "Put Another Candle on my Birthday Cake." I don't remember too much more than that, but I liked the show.
Hobo Kelly was on for a few more years after Sheriff John went off the air. My favorite part was where she would throw a bunch of random stuff (including, I distinctly remember, "thingamabobs") into a big box with a mouth at the bottom, and out of the mouth would come some cool toy.
My older brother once burst into the room and stood in front of the TV to give me a lecture. "These are stupid shows," he said. (He was referring to Bozo and Hobo Kelly.) "You shouldn't watch them. What happens on them? Nothing." Musing about Bozo, he was right. I watched other kids win prizes I would never play with, and I was usually watching mostly for a short cartoon segment they would play. But it was a long time to wait. I decided to nix Bozo. But Hobo Kelly still seemed to have something going on worth watching.
Some time in first grade I caught the local weather report on Hobo Kelly. Yes, a children's program with a weather report! It said there would be thunder showers. I filed this information in my brain and went off to school. At lunch recess, I stood up on the monkey bars, waved my arms, and yelled, "There will be thunder showers!" About five or ten minutes later it started to pour. I don't think the sky had looked all that threatening before I made my announcement. For around three years, a kid on my street was convinced I had made it rain. When I would tell him, "Only God can make it rain," he wouldn't believe me. He had seen it with his own eyes. Let's just say this put a dent in my belief in certain crass forms of empiricism.
11:09 am Pacific Standard Time
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Wednesday, November 5th, 2008
You imagine I'm going to grouse about the election results. No. I'm sad over the death of Michael Crichton. Terribly sad.
A friend posted the news to our Google group.
I am a latecomer to Crichton's work. I got into his work through either Jurassic Park or Timeline. (I read Jurassic Park later than many, so this is not confusion on my part as to which came out first.) I have read his recent books in either one or two sittings. I don't read like that with most authors, but Crichton is exceptional.
What I love most about him is his research-backed speculations. He immersed himself in all kinds of interesting studies to be able to write what he did. I have sometimes used his bibliographies as guides for book-buying. I have never been dissatisfied with a book I got on his recommendation. Timeline, especially, had interesting suggestions. The book The Fabric of Reality by David Deutsch (from which Crichton derived his multiple universe theory) is one of the most captivating books I've ever read. I'm still grappling with Deutsch's account of Karl Popper's epistemology, and how it should affect my view of science and proof.
I was looking forward to both upcoming books and their bibliographies. When I read my friend's post, I felt a sharp loss. I've felt sadness when other public figures have died. But I hadn't had a strong sense that their lives would improve mine in the future. Michael Crichton's death impoverishes my future on a level I can feel.
Here is a link to an interview he did with Charlie Rose.
12:36 pm Pacific Standard Time
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Monday, November 3rd, 2008
Over at Confessing Evangelical, John Halton wrote a post on questions we bring to the Bible which elicited some interesting responses. The post itself had grown from a comment I had made on one of his previous posts. Anyway, in my Bible class on Luke yesterday, I shared all the questions with my class to see their reactions. I wasn't sure if every question was applicable to the text we were going over, but in some cases, they took the questions differently than I did when I had first read them. I was really glad I read them all.
The questions I read to them were:
"Am I too concerned with understanding this text to be truly attentive to it?"
"What are the historical understandings of this verse?"
"Where are we up to in the story?"
The question I always ask is, "Why?" It’s a pious "why," but "why" nonetheless.
Another question I always ask is, "What are the trees in this passage; what is the forest?"
And, finally, a question I often ask myself is, "Why do I resist what God teaches me in this passage?"
(The questions with their authors' explanations are found in the comments to John's post.)
So in class we were discussing Luke 5:1-11, where Jesus calls Simon. We had discussed this somewhat the week before. It was a shorter than usual session, as service had gone long, so I decided to continue with it.
After reading all the questions, I asked, "Where are we up to in the story?" The obvious answer was the calling of disciples. So I pressed further. I noted that we know how many chapters there are in Luke, so for us the answer is clear. I asked how far we were in the story for the disciples. That got into interesting discussion. Everyone was pretty clear that their view of Jesus at this point was not very clear. But insofar as they thought they knew who he was, they probably thought the time was short. Gather in people before he declares his kingdom and takes charge. So our assumptions regarding God's timing are called into question. There was quite a bit of fruitful discussion on related points, too.
They were intrigued by the question, "Am I too concerned with understanding this text to be truly attentive to it?" They drew out what could be termed the difference between literary and theological questions. I wasn't sure where to go with the original question, but there were places to go with this one. I noted how Dick Peace's Serendipity Bible Studies gave equal weight to some very different kinds of answers. When he would ask why Jesus said a particular thing to the disciples, one possible answer might be to make a particular theological point, and another might be that Jesus was teasing the disciples. How do you weigh those out? I have another friend who will often find humor in passages people take to be serious. He goes so far as to suggest that Matthew 18 on church discipline is a joke. He thinks the disciples are to see that they are being silly. I'm not sure I accept this interpretation, but it is worth putting on the table.
When I asked what was the forest and what the trees, it got really interesting. One of the women applied the metaphor a little differently, and decided that the forest was the crowd and the trees were the disciples, particularly Simon. I found this interesting. We would expect that what was important was how much impact Jesus had on drawing crowds after Him. But what He is interested in is this more intensive impact on a few. They'll get crowds later.
The open-ended "Why?" was also fun. The class suggested that it was because the church will be reaching people for God. Jesus calling disciples instead of doing everything directly Himself has implications for how we see the church.
If we had had more time, we would have tried the other questions as well. We ended abruptly as the doors to the sanctuary opened and people started coming in to set up for second service.
This discussion was also richer than my account can suggest. There were some side points made by the class that were as interesting as the main points that directly answered the questions.
The key thing that I learned was that some questions are good whether or not they look promising to the one asking them. The class might see a different significance to the question than I do. For every time they missed what I thought was the intended significance to one question, I think there would be a couple cases where they found a better application of another question than I had foreseen. I'll be interested in collecting more questions, so if my readers have more broad questions they bring to the text, let me know.
11:42 am Pacific Standard Time
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